Friday, October 2, 2009

You are all you can ever know!There is no ‘outside’ or ‘inside’ you.‘Inside’ or ‘outside are conditioned perceptions of physical memory.You think, feel, see and experience accordingto how you see yourself!!

Let us talk about your favorite subject – YOU! Oftentimes people do not want to admit that they are all that they think about, but honesty can be quite an awakener in itself. If we fail to acknowledge such a fact then it is only because we feel guilty about it. If you feel sad it is you who is sad. If you feel happy it is you who is happy. Whatever you believe, no matter how ignoble or noble, you have to live with it. YOU are all you have or will ever have. Whether you admit it or not, it is you who has to live with that belief.

One evening during satsang I asked the people, “What is it you want more than anything?” and replies came in the form of wanting truth, love, peace, reality or what have you. Most, if they were very honest, would probably have said, “I want a million dollars or a new Ferrari or having power and fame.” Then I asked them another question, “When you want truth, peace, love, fame etc who is it you want it for?” and that question made some realize that what they really wanted was “me.” Some had object and replied, “No, it is not ‘me’ I think about by my son. He comes first.” “Doesn’t he come first because he is your son or do you feel the same about every other son and daughter?” Of course, he comes first because he is “my” son. Remember that ‘YOU’ comprises of me, mine and self-image.

When there is objection to this obvious truth, that’s when we have to look deeply into our own heart and ask if we are being honest, for that is when we defend and protect ourselves. This self-protection and defensiveness is the need to cling to this ‘me’-idea referred to as “YOU!”

If we start to glimpse, even minutely, what is being written here, you will start to see into what is most precious in Life.

Let’s take it a step further…

Ask yourself right now, “Doesn’t this apply to everyone?” Even as you read this, aren’t you applying it to yourself? After all, when we say the word ‘YOU’ aren’t we really referring to everyone?Did you know that as you read this, you are automatically referring it to yourself and not how it refers to Karen, Susanne or Burt. Everything has to do with you. YOU are all you know or can ever know.

Here is the first truth to mull over – there is nothing outside of you EVER! You start with you and end up enlightened with you! The only difference is this – that the small box called ‘me’ that saw itself so separate, so isolated and lonely finds itself to be like everyone else. So, if everyone is the same, then aren’t we all one essence? Now, doesn’t this blow you away? And, as you get blown away by the realization of your assumed smallness and find yourself part of a bigger picture, you still are ‘YOU.’ However, you are now looking through the limitless awareness that ‘YOU’ really is. You will always be YOU but as the ‘me’ idea begins to drop then so will egoic conditioning drop. Expansion of awareness is like looking at a gigantic ladder reaching above the clouds. The ‘me’ is the first rung of the ladder where only ‘me’ exists as the center of its small universe. The ‘me’ is like the little frog believing that its whole world is the small pond where it resides. As it climbs higher and higher then it sees more and more of its own Oneness. Yet, despite the climb, the ‘YOU’ remains, shedding its conditioned and limited viewpoint to see everyone as oneself.

Here is the great revealer -- how you see others, you see yourself! There is the sudden recognition that if I call you a son-of-a-bitch then I have called myself a son-of-a-bitch! If I resent what you did, I carry that resentment in ‘me.’ If I seek revenge then I torture myself with its thought-process and when I have succeeded in getting even, I have also succeeded in not liking myself whether I am aware of it or not. It was Jesus who said that what you do to others you do to me. He meant that being Christ (Oneness) every act was done to itself. If you love another then you feel that love alive in you. If you hate another than you feel that hate in you.

If you see others as they actually are despite their actions outwardly then that is how you see yourself. If you watch the news and indulge in the disasters, crimes and wars then that’s how you’ll see the world that you live in. The world is a creation of mind because there is nothing, absolutely nothing, outside of YOU. If I hurt you deliberately then I would feel that hurt by not liking myself unconsciously. The word ‘unconsciously’ covers every aspect of our judgments, dislikes, resentments, condemnations and negative thinking – this is how when we believe we are separate from Oneness we automatically create an unconscious guilt.

This unconscious guilt known often as ego is like a stone in your shoe or like an itch you can’t scratch away. It brings automatic feelings like “I am not good enough” or “I am unlovable” or “I am missing something” or “I have done something wrong without knowing what.” Why do people feel this unconscious guilt? -- By clinging to the ‘me’ aspect as separate from others comes the feeling of isolation, loneliness and deprivation. Yet we cannot get rid of this ‘me’ because it is your field of experience; your frame of reference as ‘you’; it is the felt-sense of ‘I’ that says “I am me.” We can’t help this ‘me’ concept because we believe it is who we really are. We cannot get rid of it anymore than you can get rid of the air around you. All you are left with is to SEE MORE up the ladder from ‘me’ to “I AM.” Then you’ll start to see in an obvious way that everyone is not only like you but IS ‘YOU.’ If you catch a glimpse of this Oneness, even for a brief nano-second moment, you’ll start feeling the freedom of ‘YOU.’

How you see others The great mystery is this – ‘YOU’ is all you can ever know, and rightly so, because that’s how spiritual awakening happens. There is only Oneness but then Oneness is YOU. When the recognition hit me in the year 2000 that I am a human being, it was clear that I was the BEING playing the human role of Burt. While the intense ‘experience’ lasted, there was no other but myself and, everything I saw was myself. Yet there was no Burt around.

Since most awakening consciousness is a gradual process then there seem to be degrees in awareness. I said ‘there seem to be degrees’ in awareness. It is Oneness being kind by showing itself in small doses until we see the whole picture clearly and finally realize it was all obvious. Initially all I thought was about ‘me, but didn’t recognize it consciously. The average person thinks about 26,000 thoughts a day and all of them refer to oneself. There is initial awareness that how one feels emotionally or mentally has nothing to do with Reality for it is all based on thought.

The next level of awareness starts with seeking something ‘better’ for oneself, maybe some liberating truth or some secret, but no matter what we find, it is all concerned with ‘me.’ There is no getting away from ‘me.’ In fact, the more I struggled against ‘me,’ the greater the ‘me’ had a hold on ‘me.’ This is the egoic trap. So here I reach frustration, confusion, control, anger, fear uncertainty, insecurity and doubt about what I am ‘doing’ here. These are all forms for recognizing how egoic one really is. We try to become happier but nothing happens. Maybe we study Advaita and learn the ‘evils’ of ego but all we generally end up doing is more information, ready-answers but no joy or peace. We even attempt, sincerely, to get rid of the ego while feeding it more validity and, as a result, it tries to strangle-hold us.

Our awareness starts to move a little deeper when we recognize that ‘others’ are a part of us (there are no others because there is only YOU!) So we try to be kinder, sweeter and more loving until we are attacked and we retaliate realizing it was all a sham. However, realizing it was all a façade is itself a leap in consciousness expansion.All we are ever ‘learning’ is unlearning the egoic unconscious guilt. We may even pretend we are pure awareness (which in Reality we are) but we are stuck with the pride of ‘me’ knowing this and thus lose hold of the YOU that truly is IT!

It is about this time that the battle against the ego starts and that’s when sadness becomes part of our daily life. We still haven’t recognized that ‘YOU’ is all there is and therefore there is no such thing as ego. Our attempts at trying to resist the ego merely reinforces our belief in it and sadness is the result. Ego is still the belief in a ‘me’ being stuck in the bottom rung of the ladder. We have to allow ourselves to see that the ladder is who we are!

What is the secret then? We ask, “Who am I?” but no answers are possible because there is no ego to know -- how can the ‘me’ (ego) know that which is higher than itself? This question leaves us with what we are – pure awareness without a past.

Is this ‘YOU’ subject to time? The part that believes in a ‘me’ is a self-image based on the past conditioning. In moments of deep happiness, love or ecstatic union the ‘me’ is forgotten and all that’s left is ‘YOU.’ “Aha!!” so that’s it! If I am not the past, since it is now history, then ‘YOU’ must be the NOW itself! And, since ‘YOU’ is the NOW itself then it is beyond time. Are you beginning to see how grand you really are? This ‘me’ doesn’t change from ego to Self – it awakens to what has always been the case! This ‘YOU’ is awareness presence.

This ‘YOU’ is the “I AM” of Self. Therefore, whatever I see, experience or do, it is always this “I AM” doing, seeing and experiencing. In other words, it is Oneness doing it all!! All that awakened was the viewpoint from a limited dark veil to a broad open window but nothing changed except the SEEING of what-is! When this ‘me’ was caught in the past conditioning (self-image) it was merely unconscious, asleep, robotic in nature. It was blind to what was real and lasting. It was a shell filled with uncertainty, insecurity, fear, doubts and problems. When it opened its eyes and saw what was real and lasting nothing changed but shifted in its viewpoint. It was like looking at the outside from a glass window while gazing at the pane-glass itself putting the outside out of focus. All that was needed to see the broader view was shifting your gaze from the glass to the outside as if no glass existed.

How do we shift our viewpoint? Next time you find yourself thinking about the world or others – pause for a moment and see how what you are seeing is your own perception projected from your conditioned mind. Then, having done so, allow yourself to see that there is only ‘YOU.’ The projection of fear (unconscious guilt) once it is seen through is then forgiven simply because the true nature of awareness is innocence and sees no wrong. Voila! That’s how love unfolds!

‘YOU’ is One-Self! There is a liberating feeling when we start seeing that this ‘me’ is not the thoughts, emotions but a higher aspect than just a personal self comprised of time. This begins our freedom-knowing. This recognition of seeing yourself in all others begins the liberation of self into Self.

Initially this ‘me’ is nothing but a bundle of unconscious guilt torn by beliefs in ‘shoulds’ and ‘shouldn’ts’ – conditioned further by conventional religions in so-called ‘rightful-living’ we created boundaries, fears and phobias regarding sex, loving, intimacy, openness and freedom. We became obsessed with ‘doing’ the right thing and we enslaved ourselves by not expressing what was in the heart as natural as breathing. We believed that we had to be a certain way in order to be good commandeered by our past conditioning. This enslaved us and created fears from the very thing we wanted most.

When you feel sad, angry, upset or simply lost and negative, it has nothing to do with Reality but only your thoughts about it. We are so inundated with how we should be, to be good and spiritual, that we have stifled the very Truth that is in us. Since nature abhors loss of freedom then our need for freedom becomes addictions, guilt, even perversions. We find ourselves sabotaging the things we really want and feel guilty for pursuing them.

This vicious circle is known as unconscious guilt. It is the arsenal of the egoic mind. We cannot get rid of this egoic mind, after all, who’s going to do it? We forget that there is no ‘me’ in reality because there’s only YOU! Are you beginning to see this revealing picture?

‘YOU’ is the oneness of pure awareness from which everything appears and manifests.

When you confine your ‘thinking’ to your conditioned beliefs then you actually create a wall against the very truth of YOU. Your natural state is Oneness and therefore it is intimacy, warmth, love, openness and unrestrictive freedom. ‘Giving’ is your true nature as opposed to ‘taking’ when expressed as ‘me.’ When this ‘me’ starts to dissolve into “I AM” (which is YOU) then the unconscious guilt starts to fall away and with it all the fears that imprisoned you.

What are the fears that imprison you when you act as ‘me’ rather than pure awareness? The ‘me’ is driven for love with a craving and neediness so that when love actually appears it will become beset with fears – the fear of rejection; the fear of not being loved enough; the fear of abandonment; the fear of intimacy; the fear of letting go in sexual expression and the fear of losing it all.

Throughout history we have had ‘righteous’ groups who protected themselves against evil while creating a worse evil themselves. Do you recall fundamentalist Christians? Do you recall the Ku Klux Klan? The Salem witch hunts? The hate literature against Jews and minorities? The communist propaganda to control the masses? And so many others under the banner of ‘doing the right thing?’ Is there such a thing as ‘doing the right thing?’ How freeing to realize there is only Oneness known as YOU. Everyone else is YOU. How can we hurt that which is ‘One’ with no separation? This Oneness or YOU is known as LOVE. The ego, whose arsenal is unconscious guilt, is terrified of true love. I read the following from “The disappearance of the universe” page 170 and had to quote it because of its direct message:

“The ego is always trying to find ways to prevent you from closely examining its thought system. Loudly the ego tells you NOT to look inward, for if you do your eyes will light on sin, and God will strike you blind.” Jesus said in the Course that what the ego is really worried about is not sin but the truth… “…beneath your fear to look within because of sin is yet another fear, and one which makes the ego tremble. What if you looked within and saw no sin? This “fearful” question is one the ego never asks. And you who ask it now are threatening the ego’s whole defensive system too seriously for it to bother to pretend is is your friend.”

The world is beset with wars, crimes, violence and cruelty because of one basic belief the ego has known as unconscious guilt. Unconscious guilt believes in ‘wrong.’ It is preachy, proselytizing, controlling and demanding that we do what is ‘right.’ Yet there’s no need to do what is right at all when you awaken to the LOVE that YOU actually are. You don’t ‘do’ right – YOU simply live love and then ‘right’ is no longer a ‘doing’ but a ‘being.’

‘YOU’ is all there is!! This is not only an incredible life-changing, perception-shifting and freedom-giving but it is actually our true Home. We all want to belong, to feel loved, to be happy and to enjoy each other without restrictions in utter freedom. Yet we deny this because of our beliefs in separation. We want to create boundaries, rules, self-protection and thus self-denials and fears and for what? Look into your heart right now and ask what would be the greatest thing for you? Wouldn’t it be the freedom to love without restriction or fear of intimacy? Wouldn’t it be to feel free and open in your sincere affection for all of YOU?

Who am I? People keep asking, “How can I change myself?” The fact is that any attempts at changing yourself will boomerang, often against you. The greatest news about positive change is to do nothing but simply to allow you the direct experience of pure being.

I make it my ‘practice’ to sit quietly doing nothing on a daily basis but just listening. I listen to the sounds around me and then gradually direct them to the body’s sensations of aliveness. I listen to what is completely present such as heart-beating, normal breathing, the feeling of my body against the chair and all the different physical feelings that make me know I have a body. This focus quiets the mind and stops thought. Then I focus my awareness in the room with eyes closed. I keep expanding this awareness until it contains the whole apartment and extending to the street, city, country, globe, orbit space and the Milky Way galaxy. I allow myself to ‘feel’ how unlimited awareness is. I keep ‘listening’ to this limitless, beginningless and endless awareness as my source. In this ‘listening’ is contained the knowing that I AM the awareness of Oneness itself. I see in this ‘feeling/listening/knowing’ that beliefs, conditioning, fears and all thoughts as just movements within awareness like clouds that block the sun’s light. They mean nothing but a passing movement. In this ‘listening’ I see clearly that I am nothing at all because I am everything! In this freedom, unencumbered by past or future, I see that I AM pure awareness experienced as Love. This is who I AM!

Dr. Frank Kinslow who has awakened to his true nature now offers quantum healing and has had great success in helping people heal and change by simply recognizing their true nature as pure awareness. In an interview he stated:

“I went into seclusion to contemplate “No-thing” or “pure awareness.” After another seven years of silence, I realized that there is Nowhere to go and Nothing to do. Everything is perfect just as it is. You see, “Nothing” doesn’t give answers, it IS the answer! Deep rest, pure awareness, deep peace – these would be other terms to describe the experience of “no-thing” or “no-thought.”

Ask yourself right now, “Who am I?” and no answer will emerge because that ‘no answer’ is the answer itself – you are pure awareness; a clearing; an open space; a pure being and yet fully cognizant of Presence as ‘I AM.’ Initially such ‘no answer’ is scary but when accepted as ‘the answer’ then we start waking up. We find there was never a ‘me’ but YOU as everything and nothing; everyone and no one. The logical mind cannot comprehend something so basic and fundamental but the heart can experience it directly. When you ask anyone, “How do you know you exist?” they will often reply, “Of course I know because I am aware that I exist!” Yet who is being aware? And eventually you’ll discover it is the same for all 6 billion people on this earth. It is the same one pure awareness that YOU are!

Cause and Effect Now we come to the most important secret of all and one that will blow your ego mind into the Self. This secret is so wondrous, so revolutionary and so transforming that the moment you realize it it’s awakening itself! So what is this great revolutionary and transforming secret? It is this – you are 100% responsible for every feeling, thought, motion and experience. There is no world ‘out there’ – there is only YOU! You have to be 100% responsible because there is only YOU! Everything you see happening in the world is your responsibility because you are seeing it. Most people act as victims of circumstances but in reality there are no victims because of one simple fact – YOU are the Cause and not the effect. You are pure awareness and the Oneness of all-that- IS!

The following is taken from the article “World’s Most Unusual Healer” by Ted Kuntz: “Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len is a psychologist who works with individuals considered criminally insane. These are individuals deemed mentally unstable to such a degree that they are not held legally responsible for the serious crimes they commit. As a society we typically respond by locking these individuals in an institution, often for the rest of their lives. Yet, after a few months of Dr. Len’s treatment, those individuals who had been shackled are released of their shakles. Patients who had been heavily sedated are able to go off their medications. And those who were given no chance of ever being released are freed. After four years of intervention, the ward in the state hospital where Dr.Len worked closed because so many of the patients had been released. This is the stuff of urban legend. It seems inconceivable that even the world’s best therapist could cure the criminally insane. The most unbelievable part of the story however is that Dr. Len cures his patients without ever seeing them! Rather than offer traditional face-to-face therapy using cognitive and behavioural interventions, Dr. Len studies the inmate’s charts. He then looks within himself to see how he created the person’s illness. As Dr. Len accepts, forgives and heals himself, his patients are healed.”

Dr. Len realized that being 100% responsible means he knows there is only ‘YOU’ (One-Self) and that energy is transferred to the ones focused on. It is like calling someone on the cell phone and dialing their number to reach them specifically. They are reached directly by dialing (focusing) their signal until the radio waves reach their cell phone and they answer. This is also explained as quantum forgiveness in ‘A Course in Miracles.’ We take 100% responsibility because there is only “I AM” and so by forgiving One-Self for whatever seems to be happening ‘out there’ we imbue our auric field with so much energy that our focus becomes the signal to reach the ‘other’ part of our-Self.

‘YOU’ is all there is and there’s no one ‘out there’ but YOU. It is like when you dream at night and see others in your dream-creation, they are all emanations of and from YOU. Once you start seeing this clearly then there is transformation, healing and inner power. You take responsibility for whatever you see, feel and experience and then forgive it in you. (see WorkBook Lesson #122 of ‘A Course in Miracles” titled “Forgiveness offers everything I want.”

With our current understanding of how things are, Dr. Len’s method by taking 100% responsibility doesn’t make sense. I have had people recoil at even the thought of being responsible for another’s behavior. However, we start to understand when we allow ourselves to see the obviousness of Oneness. There is only YOU. The moment you start having a glimpse of this then you will see quickly that any other method is a waste of energy. Our understanding of “There is only YOU” begins when we commit ourselves to see it. I use a method called ‘Supersentience’ in which pure awareness is seen to be the only reality. Once we glimpse this fact then ‘things’ will begin to happen in your life.

The Three Reminders:

1. Your true nature is Pure Awareness and it is through this truth alone that everything happens. This pure awareness also known as Holy Spirit is the Intelligence of Life. By being aware of this truth there is nothing for us to do and it will do what is best for us automatically by turning to it. What blocks us from using this power is the belief that we can control our life through the ego. In other words every time you try to be in control you are making yourself helpless leading to confusion, frustration and complexity. If you ever feel confused ask, “Am I trying to control this or trusting the Holy Spirit?”

2. What blocks us from knowing the simple truth of our nature is called ‘Unconscious Guilt.’ This unconscious guilt that eats away at us is the reason for the world’s ills. It believes it is separate from Source (Oneness, God) and thus often feels ‘not-good-enough’ creating self-sabotage, unnecessary suffering and projection of its guilt onto others. It is also known as unconscious self-hate.

3. There is only one safe and fast way to return to Source and that’s through quantum forgiveness. Quantum forgiveness means that you see everyone as yourself – whole and innocent as pure awareness.

Burt Hardingburtharding@shaw.ca

Please note: If you have read this and would like to have a direct experience of Pure Awareness through the method of Supersentience then email me for an appointment.

About Me

Worked as physical fitness teacher and physiotherapist until an experience with Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi transformed my life. In 2000 I fully realized I am a human being and everything became crystal clear and 'attained' peace of mind.